MMORPG and Pro-Gaming

higgsboson · February 2004

There look like at least one CRPG (Competitive RPG) under development that are planned to be released this year.

And over last couple of years, I've witnessed the rise of Pro-Gaming phenomenon in oversea countries as well as here in NA. For those who are new to this, I would suggest you to read some various article over the web written on this subject. Some NA player is reportely paid 50k a year endorsed by multinational corporation such as Intel, ATI, Nvidia, etc.... and I heard the membership of gaming league such as CPL, WCG, etc... are growing on daily basis.

There are some sceptic about this new trend of digital era stating that gaming or E-Sporting as they've termed should not be considered in "Sport" category. I'm one of them. Many are still skeptical about such coronation as the traditional sense of Sport still resides in the realm of physical affinity or kinship.

However one thing for sure is that Multinational corporation such as Samsung, Intel, Microsoft, ATI, Nvidia, etc are planning to jump aboard in this rising new segment of industry and meticuluously are planning how to rightly implement this "content" as it prepares to go mainstream.

For instance, WCG are coming in NA (San-Francisco) this year, CPL is planning numerous world championship tournament this year, Blizzard's World Wide Invitational events are held just couple of weeks ago. Besides this there are numerous other smaller tournaments or events are held locally across NA. GenCon, Cyber X which miserably failed, QuakeCon, CS clan tournament, etc.

We will see more and more coverage on those events.

Now my question arises can MMORPG, MMOG, CRPG be part of this new gaming trends?

We've seen WC3 (RTS), CS (FPS), HALO (FPS), Starcraft (RTS), AOE (RTS), Quake 3 (FPS), Unreal Tournament (FPS) being part of this. However we have yet to see console Fighter and MMORPG make its debut.

Umbrood · February 2004

Well it allready is in a sense, the mmorpg server is the battlefield and your lvl is your ranking and so on.

But in the sense you are talking about I very much doubt it, allthough i read somewere in these forums that in Korea there is a half hour TV show only devoted to Lineage, i would assume the top players there are somewhat famous, even making a buck or two on it.

But for real competition you will need more action then a mmorpg usually provides, add to that the fact that most sports are 100% based on fair play, not saying that mmorpg's are unfair but the balancing issues, lvl VS gear, and so in on all mmorpg's would make this less appealing. By fair play i mean that when the battle starts both sides are equal or very close to it, in a mmorpg two characters at the same lvl can be lightyears apart depending on gear.

Main probblem obviously is that the game you play is limited to the servers provided by the company, wereas anyone can set up a WC3 or CS server. And it would probably only be interesting to the people playing that particular game or hardcore mmorpg players. Not that i wouldnt love to bring my 203 soldier from AO to say EQ and have some fun there really aint a way to compare the two characters.

Good question though, I for one would love what you "suggest".

Umbrood

higgsboson · February 2004

The way I see this is that MMORPG can be made into a genre that promotes fair competition between players or clans.

And to do that I think MMORPGs are required to feature the followings:

1) It has to be monthly subscription fee free. Free for everyone sort of appeal. Thus allowing people who do not wish to pay monthly fee can equally enjoy the game as those who do.

2) It has to be threadmill free. You can't have fair "skill based" competition between players who have been playing the game for years and those who just began playing (less than a month say). And even if a player has very good sense of skill affinity you can't beat the odd of level gab. i.e. level 10 player will never be able to beat level 60 player in ono-on-one match.

3) Class, Race, etc has to be balanced.

4) The game has to let players to have strategically diverse choice and option in group combat or one-on-one combat situation.

If you think there are other requirements that you think that I missed please continue on....

BERTEY · February 2004

In essence you have just said in order for an mmorpg to work, it has to not be a mmorpg anymore=P

1. When i see a free game(when i say free i mean no monthy fee, not just downloadable) i stay away from it, as i know that its not stable. If you are paying for something theres a bit of motivation to keep things working and balanced, free games are just playgrounds for evil GMs to harass you with, of subject to be taken down with out notice.

2. The second thing you mention is the essence of mmorpgs themselves.

Finaly, mmorpgs, as someone pointed out up there, are a poor choise for pvp. Now, how to be competitive? I could see say, a contest held to see which team could start from level 1 and reach level X the fastest, totaly from scratch. That would be somewhat exiteing i think. However items are still a problim. Even with games like daoc where items are not all that important, there are still some things wich are needed. So i propose that before the contest a collection of gear is gatherd and sold to the teams as they go at whatever the going prices are. It seems somewhat competitive to me, i know people in daoc that have goten groups to the high 40s in just a week useing tactics and whatnot. (pet pull pbaoe)

Not only would that provide exitement, keeping track of the teams as they climb, but aswell it would probibly encourange dynamic thinking and new tactics to pop up, enriching the entire gameing community=p

Thats about the only way i could see any sort of acualy 'competitive mmorpg' playing tho. Altho now that iv thought of it, that seems kinda like a fun idea.

Finwe · February 2004

MMRPGs are actually perfect for PvP, to say they're not is ludacrous. Warfare, espionage, assassinations, trickery, deceit. I mean alot of those things make a good movie, put it in a virtual world and you got peanut butter and jelly.

As for balancing, etc. Uhh, then it wouldnt be an MMRPG, and there'd be no point to play it. It'd be a FPS with elves.

Clever_Glove · February 2004

I used to travel some and play in SC tournaments that came near my state of residents. sadly competive game tournaments never caught on here the way they did in other countries.

Can a MMORPG be played in a tournament style for cash? No.

Why?

Lack of instant action, MMORPG are more a hobby than they are a video game. It made to keep playing for as long as possible. Little in a MMORPG happens quickly.

Combat is cycle based, not reaction based "twitch based", Skill in a MMORPG is about picking the correct ability for the situation, not based on reaction speed and timing.

I used to be a glued to GGTV during my Star Craft days, but watch someone play a MMORPG? zzzzz....zzzz.....zzzz......zzzz.....

It's not a spectator sport. I don't enjoy watching people play FPS's either, for some reason I only find RTS's quality spectator time, but to each there own.

-=-=-=-=-
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Regal_TR · February 2004

For this to work you'd need an mmorpg specifically developed for this type of gaming.. One thats a mmorpg on one side.. but also has twitch based combat, instanced battle fields where teams can compete in capture the flag, ffa, most kills, etc type of things. I can only see this working in a futuristic based mmorpg with twitch based combat. I hope this happens btw I really wanna be paid to play :P

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